Contentions

On Sunday, 21-year-old Benjamin Baines Jr. was caught trying to bring a boxcutter on board a plane at Tampa International Airport. An X-ray machine picked up the boxcutter inside a hollowed out book entitled Fear Itself. Also on Baines Jr.’s in-flight reading list: Muhammad in the Bible, The Prophet’s Prayer, The Noble Qur’an, plus the Bible and the Qur’an.

The SunCoast News reports that Baines Jr. claims he’s a rapper and that rappers need to “play the part.” “Blade-wielding Islamist” strikes me as a “part” somewhat outside the average rapper’s repertoire and, though authorities say he has “no record of crimes or active warrants,” I’m not much comforted. Tampa, Florida is home to Sami Al-Arian, who some believe was Islamic Jihad’s top man in America. There are also reports that Al-Arian radicalized Tampa’s Masjid Al-Qassam Mosque. Let’s hope that some six years after 9/11 this box cutter case is treated more seriously than is your average criminal file. In his COMMENTARYarticle “When Jihad Came to America,” Andrew C. McCarthy details the series of investigative blunders that allowed radical Islam to flourish in America in the run up to the first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center. One of the more painful things to read about is how in 1990 authorities dismissed Sayyid Nosair, murderer of Rabbi Meir Kahane, as a lone nut case instead of what he was: a plugged-in disciple of the “blind sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman—the man who planned the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing.

The story of Benjamin Baines Jr. hasn’t generated much coverage, so we can’t know what investigative measures are underway. But this case should involve more than running a set of fingerprints through a sheriff’s computer.